Musical instruments, for example saxophones, flutes, trumpets and trombones are commonly made or manufactured from metal and metal alloys. A commonly used metal alloy is brass. Brass is a composite metal alloy that is made up of differing proportions of metals including copper, tin, nickel and zinc.
A significantly high level of skill is required for working metal and metal alloys such as brass. Consequently, manufacture of metallic musical instruments, for example brass musical instruments, typically requires highly skilled and experienced craftsmen. However, there is a lack of highly skilled and experienced craftsmen in many countries of the world. Therefore, it is often necessary in such countries to import metallic musical instruments so as to meet domestic demand.
An increasing demand for quality metallic musical instruments coupled with a deficiency in number of highly skilled and experienced craftsmen significantly raise retail prices of metallic musical instruments. The raised retail prices of metallic musical instruments make such instruments unaffordable to a significant proportion of the countries' population. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to reduce cost of manufacture and consequent retail prices of metallic musical instruments so as to increase affordability of the metallic musical instruments.
In addition, metals and metal alloys, including brass, are generally heavy. The considerable weight of metals and metal alloys makes such materials difficult to work with and to handle. Musical instruments constructed from metals or metal alloys will also require a significantly greater strength during transportation.
Metals and metal alloys, including brass, are typically prone to corrosion and deformation due to impact. Musical instruments made from such materials are often lacquer coated to minimize corrosion. However, it has been proposed that the lacquer coating has an adverse effect on the musical instruments' sound or pitch quality. Accordingly, there is a remaining need for a lighter and more durable construction material for musical instruments that, at the same time, will not adversely affect the quality of sound or pitch produced.
Musical instruments, in particular reed instruments such as saxophones, are generally composed of numerous individual parts that are assembled together. A typical saxophone has two main parts: a body, and a neck that is attached to an end of the body. The body of the saxophone is a substantially conically shaped brass tube with posts or plates soldered onto it. The posts or plates support a number of rods (also known as tubes), keys and tone hole cover structures. The rods of the saxophone are considered important because they support and facilitate all movement of the keys and pads that are associated with the playing of the saxophone. The pads are used to cover holes that are formed in the body of the saxophone. The keys and the pads are inter-connectable via the rods.
During play of the saxophone, a musician typically operates the keys to thereby displace the inter-connected pads away from or towards corresponding holes for respectively opening or closing the corresponding holes. Different combinations of opened and closed holes facilitate production of differing pitch of sound produced during play of the saxophone.
Typically, each of the numerous individual parts of the saxophone needs to be in a correct proportion and size to facilitate accurate assembly of the saxophone. A small error in the proportion and size of a single part of the saxophone can result in the assembly of a poor quality or an unusable saxophone. Conventionally, the numerous individual parts of the saxophone are welded or soldered together manually during assembly. Due to significantly large numbers of individual parts, the manual welding process is typically very time consuming. Additionally, manual manufacture of the saxophone introduces a possibility of human error during construction and assembly of the saxophone.
It is therefore apparent that the construction and assembly of each of the numerous individual parts of the saxophone, as well as of musical instruments in general, typically require considerable skill, time, labor and cost. Accordingly, there is a continuous need to refine and improve manufacturing processes of musical instruments. Additionally, there is also a remaining need for widely affordable, lightweight and durable musical instruments, particularly reed musical instruments such as the saxophone.